Scotland's soft fruit farms experiencing bumper season

Scotland’s soft fruit farms are experiencing a bumper season with berry yields almost doubling compared to 2024.

It’s thought the warm, sunny weather in spring got the strawberry crop off to a head start and consumers are now reaping the rewards with bigger, juicier berries.

Mains of Errol farm in the Carse of Gowrie is home to more than 800,000 strawberry plants and it’s anticipated it’ll have harvested 1,000 tonnes of berries by the end of the picking season, which for them can go on until November.

Farmer Jamie Arnot told STV News: “We’ve got lots of different varieties at different stages in different tunnels, but there’s such a large volume coming off of every variety and every tunnel type that it’s giving us that 50 to 40% extra yield to date compared to last year.”

During peak picking season it’s not unusual for Mr Arnot’s farm to pick, package and distribute ninety tonnes of strawberries each week to supermarkets across the United Kingdom.

“It’s great to be talking about massive bumper strawberries but in an ideal world shelf life is key.” – Jamie Arnot explained.

He added: “It could be five days before a consumer goes in and picks up that punnet and that needs to have some sort of life in a fridge, so we need size to be right, shapes important, shelf life’s key, and then how sweet they are is obviously – well, that goes without saying.”

The industry often must predict how successful each harvest will be – a challenging task in a growingly unpredictable climate.

Ensuring wastage is kept to a minimum is key – but supply often outstrips demand on successful growing years such as this.

Jamie said: “With one hundred tonne extra per week over say four weeks, going into the month of August, it puts everybody from farm up under pressure – so we need to try and find a home for that fruit – so there’s a cry out for extra consumption of the produce.”